No Kaddish for Filburt
by JohnnyLurg
Summary: Speaking of which, if you ever thought Filburt couldn't be more like Woody Allen... you'd be wrong.


**No Kaddish for Filburt**

My wife, Dr. Paula Hutchison, left me last year. I should have seen it coming, but that's how it goes. Quite frankly, for the most part, our marriage was like a Ralph Bighead cartoon. Sometimes she'd even try to poke my eye out with her hook hand, and it felt like a parking meter in the face. We had four kids, all from the same egg. Well, actually, I didn't have any of the kids. They were all hers. It wasn't until much later, when she was taking my extremely rare Really Really Big Man comic books to put in her own place, in an actually quite clean garage where they'd never be read again, that she let the news slip. That fat bull—we all thought he was a steer, but he couldn't have been castrated now, could he?—is the father of all four of my kids. Even the turtle twins, Gilbert and Shelbert, actually take after Hutch's father, Colonel Frank Hutchison, who ironically founded Kentucky Fried Turtle in 1965. Yes, turtle is unfortunately a delicacy among certain O-Town inhabitants, and my own ex-father-in-law is to blame. Much to the dismay of Hutch, whose maternal line is a perfect all-American _Dogs Playing Poker_ family (except that they are felines, thus mixing my metaphor), cat meat is also served in certain O-Town restaurants, but most citizens scorn the consumers of cats. Even I admit to have eaten cat meat once, three Christmas Eves ago, and my experience left me hiding in my shell for days on end. Immediately after cleaning the Manx carcass from my plate, I noticed the $6.66 meal also contained a slim slip of paper reading "BAD LUCK AND EXTREME MISFORTUNE WILL INFEST YOUR PATHETIC SOUL FOR ALL ETERNITY." The redundancy of that statement aside, I felt like Aesop had lied to me all those years ago. It seemed the tortoise (me) would not win the race. Three years later, and my old friend hopelessness visits me again, alerting me of how successful the hare has become in business while I slave away at the DMV, even more bored with my thoughts than I am with my occupation's environment.

I know what you're thinking, maybe I just ate a black cat, is all, and that made me unlucky. Take some time to hear me negate that theory: the cat was turquoise. The particular restaurant I ate at specializes in amazing Technicolor kittens, and one night a year (that being Christmas Eve), they serve them for the heavily reduced price of $6.66. Seeing such a bargain makes me feel all peachy inside. It's the kind of thrill I have only gotten elsewhere from watching old cartoons with my crazy Aunt Gretchen. Most people don't know this, but she got me started on my comic book collection as well. I don't like cartoons as much now that I'm no longer a boy. I especially have taken a disliking to the older, funnier ones. Even the first season of _Wacky Delly_ just doesn't hold a candle to the more ambitious work I lent my voice to. We had 13 episodes produced for that season, and only a few seconds of the first one saw the light of day. God knows if bootleggers have them on VHS, I could use some copies. I tried contacting Ralph Bighead once, and he promised to send me the unaired episodes through the mail. Thing is he never did, but I can't really blame him, what with him sculpting all those still life wine glasses in sandy deserts. Okay, this is one tangent too many. I think it would be for the benefit of the readers here (hello) if I continued with the story about my ex-wife I promised earlier.

Anyways, I already mentioned how two of my kids, the identical turtle twins, aren't actually mine biologically, even though they do take after me in resemblance. The same can be said for Norbert, the slow-witted, myopic one, who actually in many respects is the spitting image (without so much saliva) of his dear Uncle Heffer, which the kids have always addressed their biological father by (they never gave the same respect to Rocko). And then there's Missy Hutchison-Shellbach, who I'm unashamed to admit is the love of my life.

Sure, I've picked up a lot of flack in the community of O-Town for our relationship, what with her being 30 years younger than me. I'm a turtle, goddammit! There's a modern Methuselah on Kerplopigos Island who's 3,000 years old, and a mere 30-year age gap drives you clowns to tears? Feh! What's also common, of course, is a criticism that I'm dating and am engaged to be married to my daughter. Which is a valid argument, I suppose, until you realize that, as stated before, she isn't my daughter, okay? Missy is a high-spirited, highly independent young feline who, despite her all-American given name, has all the intellectuality and wit of the old Jewish comedian who lives inside me. Sure, she's got a bit of Jewish American princess in her too, but that doesn't bother this turtle at all so get used to it. I'm sick of the complaints and I don't need you to tell me who's a pedophile and who's a victim. There may be no Kaddish for Filburt in 2,950 years, but for now I'm living the life I always dreamed of. I got no more hooks stabbing me in the eye every time I want some quick late afternoon pussycat, and I've even arranged for Missy to receive a brand new hand for her sweet sixteen, or whatever it is in cat years. No prizes for those who guess correctly the reason why I'm so eager to have this surgery performed.


End file.
